The tectonic frame of the Variscan-Alleghanian orogen in Southern Europe and Northern Africa

Stratigraphic and faunal affinities between the Moroccan Meseta, on the one hand, and the Central Iberian, Western Asturian-Leonese, and Cantabrian zones of Iberia, on the other hand, suggest that they may well have been part of a common pre-orogenic domain at the margin of Gondwana. On the contrary, there are no counterparts in Morocco for the Ossa-Morena Zone. Thus, the northern Iberia palaeogeographic zones would prolong in the Moroccan Meseta through an eastward arcuate structure, while the suture of the Rheic Ocean would do so offshore Morocco. In our reconstruction, an Avalonian spur (Grand Banks indentor), which included the Caledonian Sehoul block in northern Morocco and the crust of the South Portuguese Zone in SW Iberia, played an important role on the kinematic evolution of the orogen as well as on the final configuration of the suture of the Rheic Ocean. This suture would mould around the Avalonian spur, being laterally translated to southeastern Nova Scotia-Newfoundland.